Abstract
In this article, I explore the complicated relationship between individual experience and national events, the way this relationship is narrated, and how individual memory becomes part of a collective memory. By looking at memoirs written by the descendants of Thomas Rantalainen, and focusing on personal correspondence, I show how the contents of letters written 60 years ago relate to events in Finland's history that are still being discussed today. In the narrative practices of the correspondence, the individuals themselves —through the use of a narrative We—mmerge their personal experiences with those of the community. Two themes in the letters—war and family life—illustrate how the processes of replication and analogical thinking work in bringing the past into the present. [Finland, history and analogical thinking, personal correspondence, domestic life]
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